Seeing What You Want to See
Over the last few days I've had some discussions with some friends about a situation we are involved in. The specific scenario is not important, but many of you will recognize the general one:
Person A has an agenda. Person A views Person B as a threat to Person A's ability to accomplish that agenda. Person A makes comments to Person C (and D and E and...) in an attempt to "discredit" Person B's viewpoint before Person B has even had the opportunity necessarily form a viewpoint. Person A takes this stance so solidly and so frequently that they actually appear to believe it.
I'm curious about this effect.
On the one hand, it might be as simple as I made it sound above - Person A is just trying to complete and agenda and alienating Person B is part of that.
On the other hand, its actually possible that Person A actually believes what they are saying about Person B. Even though to an outsider (Persons C, D and E), Person A is completely off base.
At the same time I'm just curious about what causes people to do this. In the long run, isn't it better to recognize things for what they are and try to work with them? Like in this instance, wouldn't it be better for Person A to talk to Person B and try to get them to understand their position? I suppose we have to assume that Person B is an upstanding citizen and not working within their own agenda for that scenario to play out fairly. But you see what I'm getting at.
It also seems to be the same few people that do this repeatedly. Everyone does it on occasion (yes, even me!). But there appears to be a select few that do it over and over again. What makes them act that way? What makes them choose that route over the alternative? Is it a lack of understanding of the proper "rules of engagement" for a discussion? Is it a lack of confidence in their opinion?
I'll probably never understand, but I just wanted to toss that out there.